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Tour de France Discussion
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 30-05-2020 10:00
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SotD wrote:
Oh dear :-(
One second! And also losing Stauff :-(
I'm actually sorry for you, since Lecusinier deserved the podium after this final week. Morton really struggling eventually, with only one half-good performance yesterday.
Obviously a podium finish is nice for us though (if nothing stupid happens in Paris).
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| sgdanny |
Posted on 30-05-2020 10:12
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Wellens you blithering idiot! Why the hell attack when you cant when you can't even stay in the breakaway
Congrats with the win Alex, Madrazo fully deserved it
Thanks for the timely and consistent reports
14th in the standings isn't awful and we were active in breakaways and even leading the peleton. So proud and we made a fight for retention in the PT. Thus however will not be enough, by far
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| cio93 |
Posted on 30-05-2020 11:27
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Thank you SO MUCH Denifl et al. for attacking and denying Madrazo more points! 
We can always suffer a puncture or completely mess up the leadout, but for the first time in over a week, I'm optimistic that Demare can win green.
Still, I really want to know what happened in this GT that everyone and their mother suddenly felt like defending meaningless GC positions.
Congrats T-Mobile and Farfetchd, and expected commiserations to our friends at Festina and Evonik.
Now, we all saved energy for one final leadout and sprint (looking at Arndt here in particular...), so we better show the world we got it!
Demare's 2017 Champs win was only denied by he-who-must-not-be-named, but he was weaker then and the opposition now obviously not as good.
We can win tomorrow. We can prove we deserve this jersey.
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 30-05-2020 11:28
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Very good racing from Dombrowski in the final week and it's another second place in the end. At least we avoided the drama behind.
It looks like Dombrowski will have to wait for guys like Madrazo and Taaramae to decline and then not clash with Herklotz to win a Grand Tour.
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| jph27 |
Posted on 30-05-2020 12:32
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Let's get the moaning about Monsalve's crap season out of the way first - 12th was my realistic aim for him, and 16th isn't good enough, even if he was very close to taking 14th. But Carthy makes it all better 
Before the race I was hoping Carthy would take a top 25 and 2nd in the U25 classification, plus go in a few breaks and take some minor points that way. Finishing 20th and winning a stage was in itself a great achievement, but taking the KoM (especially when only taking points in the final three stages) was beyond my wildest dreams. He's redeemed a less than stellar season here, and makes it 2 jerseys won for my team in 3 Tours, after Yates won white in 2017. Wonder who will take yellow or green at our next one...
However, we may have to wait until 2021 for that next one as it looks like we won't have done enough here to help us avoid relegation. We need to hope that Monsalve can win in Portugal, which is unlikely considering his season so far, although we have sent our strongest squad of the season to accompany him - Carthy, McCarthy and Lander are all there.
Congratulations to DD on Madrazo's win, and to knockout for the white jersey - and thanks for some amazing reports cunego! |
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 30-05-2020 12:34
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A real shame to lose two places in the top 10 by just 12 seconds, but still immensely proud of my man Peter freaking Velits getting a top 10 in this Tour de France against the odds, what a race he has ridden! Showed his legs may have faded slightly but his spirit is still one of the best around, I absolutely love it.
At least, somewhat, the places lost were to Barguil and Galta, two of my favourite riders from last year's edition, especially Galta - if he is Velits' (at least 2018-19 Velits) successor a little in terms of grit and fighting spirit overcoming slightly weaker stats I love it - though he has clearly already surpassed Velits on that front with his excellent couple of TDFs recently.
Also of course happy to see Gilanipoor with a decent enough GC placing plus that 2nd place yesterday - would have been nice to see him in more breaks perhaps, especially when Isostar sent half the team up the road a few times without him, but a nice race
Very enjoyable KoM battle, shame Velits "only" ended up fourth in a tight finish today but obviously his GC result more than makes up for it. Congrats jph on that front, great race for Carthy!
Congrats DD and Madrazo on a long-time-coming GT victory for you both, as I said before the race began every top 9 contender would have been a cool winner from a background story perspective and he certainly is.
And cunego, you deserve all the plaudits already given and many more for the reporting, just stunning and as people mentioned before I love the visuals for class and variety of angles etc. - even the borders which I noticed halfway through and now really like and will probably steal whenever I get back to reporting
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT]  Xero Racing
5x  x5
2x  x2
2x  x2 |
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 30-05-2020 20:05
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Probably Madrazo's worst mountain stage of this Tour and that says a lot because losing 20 seconds is not a big deal.
Lots of heartbreak this stage: Brenes losing the KoM by 3 points. Lecuisinier missing the podium by a second. Some riders blowing their GC on the final day.
I'll save my reaction about the entire Tour for after tomorrow's stage. In theory a horribly timed puncture or an echelon stage could still ruin our day. Don't want to risk cheering too early.
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 28-11-2024 02:13
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| ember |
Posted on 30-05-2020 22:32
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Wow, Galta does it again!!! 
Just amazing to see him able to do such a GC for the second year in a row. He looked really, really strong through the whole stage, I even started believing he could beat both Henao and Guldhammer when Galta was the one pushing the pace, but it would be rather sensational if he was to beat both. And that was all going on when the peloton and the best GC riders seemed ready to fight for the stage glory too.
Then seeing them able to get a safe lead, with Galta still looking strong, I realized the top 10 overall looked more and more likely, especially with Machado dropping from the group of favourites. Having him complete it and then being very lucky with the decisive seconds too, is amazing. 8th place was the best possible outcome going into the Alps, and seeing there's only a minute down to 12th, we've been very lucky.
Big win for Heine and T-Mobile, also regarding the teams classification. Congratulations on the win and the big GC climbs! Also obviously for DD too, but I guess we'll wait until tomorrow seeing he wants to be safe through Paris before celebrations start
Fingers crossed the final stage is without any drama regarding the overall classification. |
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| OlegTinkov |
Posted on 31-05-2020 03:55
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Come on Samolenkov!
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| cio93 |
Posted on 31-05-2020 08:56
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Come on Arnaud!
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| cunego59 |
Posted on 31-05-2020 09:00
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.
And with that, the Tour de France 2019 is officially in the books. I think it was a really neat race with lots of interesting developments. I’m glad that you seem to have enjoyed following along and I appreciate all the kind words. It was a lot of fun to do the reports, but it’s reading your guys’ discussions and seeing your engagement that makes it ultimately worth it, so a big thank you for that!
I’m going to conclude my coverage with a final overview of the stage winners and jersey wearers as well as the final outcomes of the goals. But I want to preface that by mentioning that 19 out of 23 team have had either a stage win or at least one day in one of the jerseys (or both) and of the other four, two have a rider in the Top 10 (SPAR and Moser) and the other two at least both have a second and a third place stage finish (Isostar and Podium Ambition, see further below). Some of you will be disappointed, that’s the nature of the game, but I think that speaks to how competitive this race was, at least in some ways.
And also, a quick update on the historical stats: Phinney is now third all-time in stage wins with 10, Madrazo and Demare both move into the Top 20 with 5 each. Phinney is also third all-time in days in yellow with 23, by far the most by a rider who hasn’t actually won the race. Madrazo is in the Top 10 here now with 11. Demare is the new all-time leader for days in green with 24, and Brenes is tied-third for most days in the polka-dot jersey with 12 - now also the most by a rider who has not won the competition.
| Stage Winner | | | | | | 1 |  Stauff | Stauff | Stauff |  Sanogo | Sanogo | | 2 |  Demare | Demare | Demare |  Yzeiraj |  Lopez | | 3 | Demare | Demare | Demare | Yzeiraj | Lopez | | 4 |  Sicard | Demare | Demare |  Brown | Lopez | | 5 |  Grieg - Maersk | Sicard | Demare | Brown |  Ndayisenga | | 6 |  Morton | Phinney | Demare | Vosekalns | Lopez | | 7 |  Samolenkov | Phinney | Demare | Vosekalns | Lopez | | 8 | Phinney | Phinney | Demare |  Brenes | Lopez | | 9 |  Smit | Phinney | Demare | Brenes | Lopez | | 10 | Demare | Phinney | Demare | Brenes | Lopez | | 11 |  Groenewegen | Phinney | Demare | Brenes | Lopez | | 12 |  Hacecky | Phinney | Demare | Brenes | Lopez | | 13 | Phinney | Phinney | Demare | Brenes | Lopez | | 14 |  Madrazo | Phinney | Demare | Brenes | Lopez | | 15 | Madrazo | Madrazo | Demare | Brenes | Lopez | | 16 |  Summerhill | Madrazo | Demare | Brenes | Lopez | | 17 | Lunke | Madrazo | Demare | Brenes | Lopez | | 18 |  Dombrowski | Madrazo | Demare | Brenes | Lopez | | 19 |  Carthy | Madrazo | Demare | Brenes | Lopez | | 20 | Henao Montoya | Madrazo | Madrazo | Carthy | Lopez | | 21 | Groenewegen | Madrazo | Demare | Carthy | Lopez |
| Team | Goal | Leader | Final | | Grieg - Maersk | Win |  Phinney | 5th |  T-Mobile | Win |  Henao Montoya | 12th | | Aegon - Lavazza | Top 3 |  Velits | 10th | | eBuddy | Top 3 | Dombrowski | 2nd | | Gazelle | Top 3 |  Madrazo | 1st | | Air France - KLM | Top 5 |  Sicard | 7th | | Bennelong - Mitchelton | Top 5 |  Morton | 3rd | | Farfetch Pro Cycling | Top 5 |  Monsalve | 16th | | Festina - OAKA | Top 5 | Lecuisinier | 4th | | Aker - MOT | Top 10 |  Galta | 8th | | Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ | Top 10 |  Brenes | 36th |  SPAR - Siam Cement | Top 10 |  Denifl | 6th | | EA Vesuvio | Top 10 |  Schleck | 15th | | , | | | |  Podium Ambition | Points | Alaphilippe | 41st |
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| cio93 |
Posted on 31-05-2020 09:09
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 WE WON GREEN
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| SotD |
Posted on 31-05-2020 09:20
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Thanks for some great reportings! You need an extra round of applause for adding this much quality to the game despite not taking part. That is truly appreciated!
Looking at the results here I’m pretty confident that Lecuisinier with +1MO can become a real GT contender. Despite losing the podium by just 1 second Lecuisinier showed to be approximately the 3rd best climber here.
Also a fun little add-on to the story of Lecuisinier vs. Morton that the Aussie won the duel by that slim of a margin. He truly is the nemesis of Lecuisinier. I guess both will have a bunch of GT wins in the future. Many of the best riders are slowly past it, and Phinney seems to be struggleing in the 3rd week.
Stauff was the big overperformer for us, too bad he wasn’t here to contest in Paris.
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 31-05-2020 09:38
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First of all: Thank you very much cunego for an awesome Tour. It was a special report, I loved the screenshot-game and the attention to details about how what happens on the road leads to which changes off the road. Eventhough I didn't compete in any classification, it kept me involved in the fight. Thanks for your efforts!
Huge results for some. Congrats to cio. I don't understand why Kump couldn't do at the Vuelta what Demare could do here, looking at how the teams were built and how the opponence looked like. Most likely it was Keizers presence that hindered him a lot. The potential is there, I just failed to play it well this year it seems.
Congrats to Madrazo, big win. Made me wonder whether I should've indeed sent Spilak here. As expected, Phinney turned out to be at the wrong GT at the end. His manager should've let me get him in FA I guess, then he would've had slightly higher MO by now
Our team with a mixed bag. The experienced riders in Gilanipoor and van der Sanden did very well, same for our loanee in Frankiny, who we'd love to retain but I guess that's very unlikely. Jaramillo and Pernsteiner disappointing though, they did not do well from breaks and where sometimes stupidly used as doms for Augustyn, who wasn't bad but didn't wow from breaks. If the team would've turned the order around, I'm sure we could've added a couple more Top5s from this. This also makes me quite sure that I'll sell both of those to a lower division, where they can use their great skillsets a lot better I guess and the AI is more to their favour.
Augustyn, Katrasnik and Vermote all with solid races, helping in breaks. However, the former has led us too often in the breaks, while I wished for the later to try more on the attack on the flatter days.
All in all a solid Tour for us given the very low expectations, but we obviously lost a lot of ground in the battle for minor places in the division.
Also: How is Lachlan Morton, 3rd at the Tour overall, only a stunning 0,03 overall ahead of Marko Kump. Or the likes of Joseph Dombrowski only 0.04 ahead of Matej Mohoric. Shows that we need to take a look at the AVG calculations again and do a lot of reshuffeling
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| tastasol |
Posted on 31-05-2020 11:22
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Decent sprint by Phinney  Overall a very good race for us the first 14 stages, but from there it was downhill. To be honest though, I'm not really sure Phinney lost out on many points going here instead of the Vuelta, where I think he would have been beaten by Rein anyway. And as mentioned earlier, we only took him here because it was a goal and we thought a good result would give important money for next season. Hopefully towards training him, all though it seems like REC is the stat he really needs to be upped.
Thanks for all the amazing reports, cunego, and congrats to all who did a good race. Very well deserved winner in Madrazo.
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 31-05-2020 11:37
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Major milestone in Gazelle's history. Appreciate the congratulations, guys.
Madrazo has been with us since promoting to PT for the first time in 2016. After a mediocre first season, Angel started a two year slump scoring on average just 1068 points per season in 2017 and 2018. Most riders of similar strength and wage scored double that amount. It was a very frustrating and disappointing situation for the team but ultimately we decided to remain confident in his abilities and keep him on board.
The past couple of weeks he has repayed our faith. Le Tour de France is way more than just a big bag of points. It's a legendary race and the pinnacle of the MG calendar. With this win Madrazo has given the prestige of his team a major boost and he has put himself in the company of MG giants Schleck and Spilak, the other two-time Tour winners.
The support team has done a stellar job as well. Their help was crucial in getting Madrazo through the first two weeks in a good GC position and also allowed some of the stage success he enjoyed. Their strength is illustrated by the fact that despite all this hard work they managed to win us the Team Classification. Vervaeke finishing 24th in GC is a huge result for him and bodes well for the future. Karnulin and Bibby top 30 as well; good job.
Cunego, thank you for making this Tour even more awesome with your immersive and detailed reports.
Congratulations to everyone who got what they came for. Dombrowski, Morton and Lecuisinier lost this battle, but they for sure have a big future ahead of them.
No hard feelings that we lost the Green to Demare; very deserving winner.
Special shoutout to the riders who, from the top of my head, spiced things up with their offensive spirit: Brenes, Sicard, Denifl. There were many others of course, but these stood out to me the most.
Now we switch our focus to the PT showdown. 9 races left for us. See you all in Herbiers.
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 31-05-2020 12:07
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Brave but foolish attempt for Van Poppel there.
And that concludes another Grand Tour for 2mbrowski. Congrats, DD. Sticking with Madrazo through his off years has payed back big time this year and it will probably keep paying back until he starts declining.
Thanks for the coverage of the race, cunego. Awesome stuff!
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| Yellow Jersey |
Posted on 31-05-2020 12:47
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That was a pathetic ending to Machado's Tour, raced strong all race long and then went off like a child in the last mountain stage. Oh well there's no points anyway for me it's ok We still got a stage win from the race so it was a success, Thanks cunego for all the reports! And congratz DubbelDekker!
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| ember |
Posted on 31-05-2020 15:27
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Thank you again for your stellar reporting, cunego59! It's has been a great, great Tour to follow from the very start and all the way to Paris, thanks to your coverage.
Big congratulations to DD as well on the overall win! Very cool to see Gazelle being rewarded for their kind of rebuilding over a couple of years, having not really had any proper GC rider their first seasons.
For our team, this ended up being a great Tour. We got a lot from it, being aggressive from the very first stage and we just kept going getting in the breakaways and making the most of it on every stage. And then came the third week, where we could reap the big rewards, with Lunke's stage win and Galta's heroic final two mountain stages, which was epic to follow Also earlier in the race we had some very "exciting" tries in the breakaways, must say I really enjoyed Yzeiraj the first days, and then Vangstad also came close in the second (or was it early in the third?) week on the flat stage.
Just a brilliant Tour for us, where we got much more points than we could expect, probably and hopefully making us steer clear of the relegation fight for the rest of the season.
And then congratulations to all others that walk away from here with something positive. Puma a big winner too with Demare, the podium for Morton and Bennelong, the 6th place for Denifl, and many others. |
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| Tamijo |
Posted on 31-05-2020 15:59
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congrats DubbelDekker
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